Child sex abuser jailed after 20-year delay

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The man, who cannot be named, used to dress as a girl to protect himself when he was younger, the court heard.

A 63-year-old man has been jailed for four years for sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy almost 20 years ago.

The man, who cannot be named because he is also a victim of sexual abuse, pleaded guilty in the County Court to two charges of committing an indecent act with a child under 16 and two counts of sexual penetration of a child under 16.

The offences occurred between mid 1993 and September 1994 on a 11-year-old boy who was the son of a close female friend.

In sentencing, Judge Barbara Cotterell said the offences occurred in 1994 but for an unknown reason, police had failed to investigate.

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She said that the man had known about the complaint since 1995 and since then had lived with the apprehension of arrest.

In 2010, police reactivated the case and arrested the man and extradited him to Victoria.

The offending in two of the charges was made up of occasions where the boy was watching television while staying at the man's house and he came into the room and abused him by performing sexual acts on him.

On another occasion the boy was told to perform sexual acts on the man and the man told him that if he told anybody, he would not be believed.

The boy made a report to his teacher and made a statement to police but the man was not arrested.

Judge Cotterell said the boy had been sexually abused in the past by another man and the 63-year-old man was aware of that.

In a victim impact statement, the boy, now 30, said as a result of the offending he had run away from home and he said “it just seemed natural to earn money on the streets”.

The boy said he felt guilty about the offending and when the case was reactivated he had to rehash memories of what happened to him when he was a child.

Judge Cotterell said that the man, a father of three, had been a victim of physical and sexual abuse as a child and had witnessed his father committing domestic violence against his mother.

She said the man was confused about his sexuality as a child and had dressed in girls' clothing to protect himself from his father's abuse.

She said when he was 24 he had been married and had been for nine years and had ended the relationship to start another relationship with a man.

He had had other homosexual relationships since, but was now planning to marry a woman.

Judge Cotterell said the man had a series of physical and mental disabilities including serious spinal injuries which occurred at work.

She said the offending was serious and despite the man's injuries the seriousness of the offences meant that immediate jail was warranted.

“The exploitation of the young and most vulnerable members of the community will not be tolerated particularly when by people in positions of trust with the children they abuse,” she said.

She jailed the man for four years and ordered he serve a minimum non-parole period of 14 months.